[mythtvnz] EPG problems

[Nick Rout]

On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 09:57:58 +1300
Gary Te Young wrote:

> >With the amount of effort that it takes to get a listings website going 
> >only to have it shut down by people like TVNZ, there would seem to be a 
> >less risk in having a script that grabs the listings directly from the 
> >source.
> >If the source was decentralized (or international) it would be almost 
> >impossible to shut down...
> 
> Is it illegal to use the DVB-S tv grabber script to get the EPG?  If it
> isn't, then is it illegal to allow people access to your DVB-S card to grab
> the information themselves?  This way there is no website holding the EPG
> data just php script or something of that nature that will return the data.

Well that is just what mr.geek was doing, grabbing the data off his
satellite card and dumping it for people to pick up as an xml file
(gzipped, but that is irrelevant).

And he got a cease and desist letter from TVNZ, as they regard their
listings as copyrighted. 

I have not seen mr.geek's c&d letter, although I asked him for a copy 
(IAAL). Most people really don't want a legal scrap with someone the
size of TVNZ, no matter the legal rights and wrongs, or the moral rights
and wrongs.

If I could get my ancient skymedia dvb card (an ex-ihug sat card) to
download the EPG, I would not need an external source, and would even
look at making the data availabkle to someone in, say, outer mongolia :-)

On a similar note, media companies may in fact be getting the message
that there is a big groundswell against them over their overbearing
tactics:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/18/1830240&from=rss

<quote>
RacerZero writes "The recent Slashdot story Music Should Be Heard But
Not Understood sparked a good deal of discussion about the overreaction
of music industry heavyweights. This week Wired is running an apology
from Warner Chappel music for their poor judgement. From the article:
'Facing an upswell of protest, Warner Chappell Music on Friday formally
apologized to Walter Ritter over a letter it sent to the software
programmer earlier this month targeting a helper application for Apple's
iTunes called pearLyrics.'"   </quote>

> 
-- 
Nick Rout <nick@rout.co.nz>